Merab Dvalishvili’s winning streak reaches historic status as he beat Sean O’Malley at UFC 306. After his one-sided unanimous decision win, Dvalishvili is the ninth undisputed bantamweight champion in UFC competition. The ‘Tale of Tape’ card snippets from ESPN and UFC on @TNTSports show how dominant the win actually was. However, ‘The Machine’ adds more to it.
Merab Dvalishvili secured a streaking 4/4 takedown against Marlon Moraes . He again snagged 5 out of 11 takedowns against Henry ‘Triple C’ Cejudo at UFC 298. His only challenges were against well-rounded Jose Aldo and Petr Yan .
Merab Dvalishvili had a ginormous array of 6/15 takedowns against Sean O’Malley. However, there’s one more stat that the new champion could just kiss and tell, literally.
Stats from my fight Merab Dvalishvili via X (@MerabDvalishvil)
Dvalishvili’s prowess has never been in doubt, even though the Serra-Longo Fight Team fighter staggers against speedy fighters. Against Aldo, specifically, he landed zero takedowns. However, that’s a case of ‘King of Rio’ being better than him being worse.
Aldo even rocked Marlon Vera ; even O’Malley’s thunder-knees could not do that. So it’s not all too surprising that an in-shape Dvalishvili would dominate Sean O’Malley. Meanwhile, Petr Yan didn’t pose any threat at all. However, the weird stat of 6 kisses is hilarious!
The Georgian fighter has always been the bantamweight funnyman. However, he took that disposition too far and added insult to injury at UFC 306. During one of his R2 cage-side takedowns, he was working a choke. He kissed the nape of the neck of the former champion several times in the waning seconds before letting go. While an odd happening, it only adds to the brutal domination.
O’Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) lost his bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili in what was a very lopsided affair. ‘The Machine’ used an aggressive, pressure-packed attack to try and disrupt O’Malley’s offense and succeeded at UFC 306.
His takedowns fall only behind legendary welterweight G.O.A.T. Georges St-Pierre. Dvalishvili’s 72 takedowns and 1,950 total strikes landed at the 135-pound mark, which is also the most in the division. Under coach Ray Longo, his shot selection game has also vastly improved. Over 10 minutes of control time atop ‘Suga’, paired with some acute strikes prove that.
However, when it came to be, Dvalishvili fell back to his jolly discourse to kiss and taunt the rival while fighting. When it happened, the moment went quite viral. Now, the 33-year-old dousing his kisses as a good stat went even more viral.
With ten seconds left in the second frame of the bout, ‘Mean Machine’ Merab Dvalishvili opted to look for time control. To break it down, how utterly dominant he was, his kisses came along. Fans recognize that “straight domination” and have billed it as such. Some have joked about giving Umar Nurmagomedov the same treatment.
More than the easy win, fans have also taken a liking to this funnyman’s status of having significant kisses. Unless one counts gimmicky crossover boxers kissing at staredown or Craig Jones, this is the ultra-rare most significant kisses per minute in MMA history. It just goes to show there is more than one way to domination.